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Oyster Jumble

A savory oyster patty made with eggs, milk, cracker crumbs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Jumble

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

  1. Strain the liquid from the oysters and add the oysters to a bowl.

  2. Mix in the beaten eggs, milk, cracker crumbs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Heat a greased skillet over high heat.

  4. Form the mixture into patties or leave it whole and brown quickly in the skillet.

  5. Cover to cook through, then carefully turn to brown the other side.

  6. Place on a platter.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the strained liquid, salt, pepper, butter, milk or cream, and flour.

  2. Heat until thickened, then pour over the oysters.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Form the main body of the patties and provide the dish's central flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the patties hold together while cooking.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mixture body so it can be formed and browned.
Flour
Thickens the saucepan liquid into a sauce that coats the oysters.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Cover to cook through, then turn to brown. Covering traps steam so the centre heats through, while the later turn lets the exposed side brown. Turning too early or too often can break the patties apart before the eggs and crumbs have set.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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